| Capitol Hill is bracing for another trillion-dollar legislative fight as chatter consumes a potential package that would provide funding for cities and states, and infrastructure spending to deal with the continued fallout from the coronavirus outbreak. Fresh off the battle that led to the $484 billion interim package President Trump signed into law on Friday, bringing the total in just over a month to nearly $2.8 trillion, lawmakers are looking ahead to the next legislative vehicle. Headlining the potential bill would be the long-awaited funding for state and local governments, which Democrats and some Republicans are clamoring for. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters on Friday that she expects the next coronavirus-related bill to include up to $700 billion for cities and states, including those that have been ravaged by the pandemic. “They have made outlays for the coronavirus that are extraordinary. And they have lost revenue, and we want that covered because of the coronavirus,” Pelosi told MSNBC on Sunday, noting that the funding would go toward first responders and health care workers, among others. “And what that covered too — state and local — let's say our heroes … many of them risking their lives in order to save lives. And now they're in danger of losing their jobs.” The National Governors Association, chaired by Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), has requested $500 billion to boost state and local governments, while cities and counties are looking for $250 billion in relief (NBC News). As The Hill’s Jordain Carney writes, multiple fights are on the horizon as part of negotiations for what is expected to be another gargantuan bill, outside of the state and local funding and a sizable amount for infrastructure, a bipartisan issue. Among those are potential changes to the small-business loan program that has received $660 billion, including whether lawmakers increase funding again and if new restrictions on who can receive funding will be included. Also on the docket is a potential increase in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits — an issue that did not make it into the interim bill — and toward voting as Democrats look to give states the ability to conduct elections through mail-in ballots. While the details still need to be ironed out, lawmakers are struggling with one key issue of any deal: timing. Democratic lawmakers are pushing forward with the next coronavirus-related package in order to have a bill ready to bring up for consideration when lawmakers are tentatively expected to return on May 4. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has not signed onto this timeline, having indicated that he has no plans to negotiate a bill until lawmakers return to Washington. The House Republican Study Committee today will release a 36-point policy framework that includes initiatives tied to the coronavirus. Among proposals: “offset future COVID-19-related deficit spending,” which signals battles ahead with the majority. The Washington Post: Trump and Congress spar over next coronavirus economic package as Congressional Budget Office paints grim picture of what’s to come. The Hill: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin: “If we need to spend more money, we will, and we’ll only do it with bipartisan support.” The Associated Press: Remote vote? In Trump shadow, stay-home Congress eyes change. The Hill: McConnell state bankruptcy remarks raise constitutional questions. The Hill: Pelosi: Governors’ impatience “will help us get an even bigger number” for state coronavirus funding. As House Democrats seek the next massive package aimed at keeping the U.S. economy afloat, many economic analysts applaud the speed even as the public has had no time to grasp the benefits of stimulus checks and two rounds of funding for loans for small businesses. Both efforts have been ensnared in bureaucratic stumbles and brewing battles over the haves and have-nots. Should publicly traded hotel chains get Paycheck Protection Program funds? Should well-funded private universities get taxpayer money for education programs? Should major restaurant chains be able to compete for limited funding with mom-and-pop restaurants and small town hair salons? The public discontent about the bailouts and payouts is growing. And that worries politicians in both parties. The Hill: Three publicly traded hotel firms say they won’t give back PPP money. The New York Times: Large companies take bailout aid while loans were aimed for others. Millions of dollars go to applicants facing financial and legal problems. Bloomberg News: Resentment grows on Main Street over bailout winners and losers. The public blowback against Trump has bubbled up in recent polling that shows eroding trust in his handling of the pandemic. His job approval remains well below 50 percent but is stabilized by his Republican supporters. Nervous GOP allies have been advising the White House for weeks to tone down the Trump-centric daily press briefings at the White House that the president dominated with grievances and announcements that wandered far afield of either the public health emergency or accurate readings of the nation’s economic duress. Trump switched gears on Friday and answered no questions at the briefing. Over the weekend, he held no briefings and suggested in a tweet that he may stop doing them. A briefing is scheduled this evening. The Associated Press: The White House is aiming for Trump to pivot from pandemic to economy. Reuters: U.S. response to the coronavirus splinters into acrimony and uncertainty. Meanwhile, the White House over the weekend was reported to be considering replacing Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, according to The Washington Post, The Associated Press and other outlets. Trump has reportedly been frustrated with Azar for weeks, but on Sunday evening the president denied the accounts and tweeted that Azar is doing “an excellent job.” The GOP is worried about Trump’s weakened poll numbers in the midst of a battle to hold both the Senate and the White House through COVID-19 devastation, high unemployment and corporate gloom (The New York Times). Looking ahead to the November elections, veteran GOP political consultant Charles Black said, “If Trump is the issue, he probably loses.” New White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, the Freedom Caucus founder from North Carolina (pictured below), is getting an earful from allies on Capitol Hill about how to improve the optics while guiding the president’s decision making and a reelection team that cannot at the moment run on a playbook of economic mastery. The Hill: Meadows puts his fingerprints on the Trump White House. The Daily Beast: Meadows’s shadow job? Keep evangelicals on board the Trump train. The Associated Press: Trump’s focus on his base complicates a path to reelection. Science & COVID-19: Public health experts concur: The United States needs more coronavirus infection testing and a greater capacity to conduct those tests in a nation with 330 million people. The country also needs mass antigen, or antibody testing, but those snapshot tests are not all created equal, Stat News reports. And the World Health Organization warns that antibody tests do not prove that people infected once are immune from COVID-19 going forward (NPR). Equally important, scientists do not know whether the virus is reactivating in some patients who tested negative and then positive, or if new “flare-ups” are new infections. No other coronavirus has shown the ability to go dormant in humans, but researchers have more questions than definitive answers (Healthline). Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, said on Sunday that antibody testing needs a “breakthrough innovation,” which has not arrived yet. ”We have to be able to detect antigens, rather than constantly trying to detect the actual live virus or the viral particles itself. … I know corporations and diagnostics are working on that now. … This RNA [ribonucleic acid in living cells] testing will carry us certainly through the spring and summer. But we need to have a huge technology breakthrough” (The New York Times). COVID-19 is not going away. It will menace the United States well into the fall and beyond. And the nation is going to blow past 60,000 coronavirus fatalities within days. The death toll from the disease will easily exceed the lower end of the disease models touted by the White House. COVID-19 is spreading beyond the two coasts and deeper into the interior of the country, even as nearly a dozen states champion plans already started or just beginning to revive economic activities and ease stay-at-home orders (Politico). The Hill: Did everybody get the correct message? Do NOT inject or ingest household bleach or disinfectants to try to kill or ward off the COVID-19 pathogen. You could die. The Hill: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is devoting its “total attention” to COVID-19, Bill Gates told The Financial Times in an interview. The foundation has an endowment of $40 billion. The Hill: Sunday talk shows: Focus shifts to reopening economy hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Mark Leibovich: Trump turns shared American experiences into us vs. them. 
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